


Shadow Jumper

by QueenKirriana



Category: Othello - Shakespeare
Genre: Gen, Original work - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-02 01:15:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2794421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenKirriana/pseuds/QueenKirriana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This version was the one I wrote for a school assessment but will be slowly reworked into a full story because I wrote more words than I was supposed to and I feel that it just isn't enough. I had to use 5 things picked in relation to Othello and I believe they were: a handkerchief, jealousy, a song, a contrast and a Othello insult-quote.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadow Jumper

Shadow Jumper  
When my parents dropped us off at Honorhall Orphanage, they told me that maybe one day they'd come back for her and maybe they wouldn't. "Don't wait up on us Layla. Don't let anyone slow you down." they said, giving me a single token to remember my birth parents by. It was a lilac handkerchief with small orchids twirling around the edges, connected by twisting vines with leaves shooting off to the corners. It had belonged to my mother before me and she had caught me admiring it one day and told me that one day I could have it. My parents then turned to my sister Altaria and gave her a locket with their pictures inside and a trunk full of toys and new clothes to wear. “Keep it close.” they told her. 

I was eight and my sister three. Well, half-sister really. When I was five my mum had kicked my dad out of the house and shacked up with some dead-beat drug dealer for a few months before kicking him out too. He was a jerk, he kicked me, called me a disgusting mutt and told me that if I was his daughter then he would have drowned me and dumped me in the river by now. Before she kicked him out, dad was allowed back into the house frequently and I realised mum was cheating on her new boyfriend with her old one. 4 months after dead-beat had left and dad had come home permanently, I was told that I was going to be getting a little brother or sister. When she was born Altaira had beautiful skin, as pale as alabaster and it became clear to my daddy that she wasn’t his. My own skin looked like filthy dirt in comparison, stuck between my pale mother and dark father. He loved her even more, although she was not his daughter and I was left on the outside looking in at all she had. That was when the green eyed monster first came to visit me. It had also appeared when mum and dad left us at Honorhall. 

For two years after they sent her gifts at every holiday and turned up to visit her when they weren’t in and out of hospital and rehab for continuing their drug addiction, now free from the responsibility of two young girls. The monster was my friend as they never visited me or sent me anything other than a christmas and birthday card the first year, forgetting about me in the second. They died from an overdose that Christmas and families were lining up to adopt the gorgeous little girl that could do no wrong. They brought her gifts and other fancies, trying to buy her affections. Eventually a couple won the popularity contest. I was introduced and they eventually agreed to take me too. They pushed me into the room with them and I sat across the room, holding the handkerchief and pretending that they were my real parents, come to take us home. I was not the daughter they wanted and so I never fitted in with their perfect family. Altaria quickly forgot our parents and threw the locket away. I saved it and I kept it, determined to not lose them ever. 

I remained invisible as we grew older, plagued by the green-eyed monster, walking around with it as a constant shadow, enveloping me in dark bitterness until my soul was as black and hardened as my skin. I resented her in silence and talked to no one. My sister became as free as a bird, able to spread her wings and fly as far as she could. Friends piled to her and she turned very few away. She turned into a saucy minx, playing with boy’s hearts without a second thought. My one boyfriend she took away from me and even he ceased to acknowledge my existence too. 

I moved away after an argument where she told me she was marrying my ex at age 18 and I told her he’d only break her heart and she told me that I was a “Jealous mutt” and ripped the locket from my neck, ripped the framed handkerchief from my wall, broke open the case and threw the last tokens I ever had of people who actually loved me at some point in my life, into the fire while I stood helplessly and watched them melt away. I came back 10 years later after I heard that he had beaten her and gotten arrested for trying to kill her even though she was carrying their child. We were civil, exchanging small talk about our lives and she tried to ignore that I had made something good from my life and I tried to ignore the bruises and empty space in the house of our adoptive parents who had left it to her. They left me a sum of money that I took it and put towards the college funds for my three children with my husband. She watched my children run around, laughing and playing, at my husband and I, before realising that the monster from my childhood had switched shadows. We went out to karaoke with her and some of the girls from her teenage years that hadn’t left town or fallen out with her. I refused to sing but when Altaria’s ex-husband walked in, all that changed. He introduced himself to my husband, and then to me. “Layla, that means “dark as night” right? Just like my Altaria is “the brightest star” nice contrast.” he smiled with the look that used to kill me. I considered getting up on that stage and singing Ignorance by Paramore for the chorus but instead I found myself at the microphone, staring at my sister singing Autumn Leaves by Edward Sheeran. My nerves took over as I started to sing:

Another day another life  
Passes by just like mine  
It's not complicated

Another mind  
Another soul  
Another body to grow old  
It's not complicated

Do you ever wonder if the stars shine out for you?  
Float down  
Like autumn leaves  
Hush now  
Close your eyes before the sleep  
And you're miles away  
And yesterday you were here with me

Another tear  
Another cry  
Another place for us to die  
It's not complicated

Another life that's gone to waste  
Another light lost from your face  
It's complicated

Is it that it's over or do birds still sing for you?  
Float down  
Like autumn leaves  
Hush now  
Close your eyes before the sleep  
And you're miles away  
And yesterday you were here with me

Ooh how I miss you  
My symphony played the song that carried you out  
Ooh how I miss you  
And I, I miss you and I wish you'd stay

Do you ever wonder if the stars shine out for you?  
Float down  
Like autumn leaves  
Hush now  
Close your eyes before the sleep  
And you're miles away  
And yesterday you were here with me

 

Ooh oh, ooh oh  
Ooh oh, ooh oh

Touch down  
Like a seven four seven  
Stay out and we'll live forever now

 

When I finished singing, I was looking at my sister and I knew that I had sung my unsaid loss for my parents and the love lost between me and my sister all these years. All my years of resentment melted away like the locket and handkerchief as I put down the mic and rushed over to give my sister a hug for the first time in our lives.


End file.
